Tuesday, October 02, 2012

While President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney bone up in Nevada and Colorado for Wednesday’s opening debate, back in the nation’s capital attention is split between the hard-fought presidential race and baseball playoffs.

The Nationals won the first division baseball championship for a Washington team since 1933 by clinching the National League East race Monday night.

Washington, D.C., has the only ballpark where so many Cabinet members, politicians and other luminaries routinely gather and where fans now are openly rooting for a particular president — one who served more than a century ago, Theodore Roosevelt.

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There's no trap. The claim here is that Dick Morris was a shameless bandwagon-jumper while Nate/"Poblano" was ahead of the curve. If this is true, it shouldn't take more than a link or two to prove it.

The U.N. flavor of fever swamp bugnuttery might just be my favorite. I mean, the U.N. couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery without the U.S. taking the lead, and now, all of a sudden, they're going to take over the U.S., Red Dawn style by sending in Albanian election observers???

Missouri Lt. Governor Peter Kinder (R) on Thursday warned that “Albanian” election monitors who will observe polling places on November 6 are part of President Barack Obama’s plan to let the United Nations take over the United States.

“UN observers, monitors, have no business in our elections and should be kept out of Missouri,” he told radio host Dana Loesch. “I’m calling on legislative leaders in the majority party in both the House and Senate — Republican leadership — to join me in saying we will not have these UN election monitors in our state.”

Kinder said he was inspired by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who threatened to arrested the international election monitors if they come within 100 feet of a polling place.

Following a request from eight civil rights groups, the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner, agreed to send 44 election monitors to the United States. The international organization began monitoring U.S. elections in 2002, when then-President George W. Bush invited them to the country.

“This is a piece of the creeping affection for the UN and embrace of the UN that the left has,” Kinder said. “Every other week, somebody from the Obama administration, either worst Attorney General in American history Eric Holder or Hillary Clinton or somebody is over at the UN from Obama’s administration planning to sign away our sovereignty, planning to give up our gun rights, and bring the UN in over our Second Amendment rights, or submit us to a regime of global taxation. If your listeners think I am overstating this, this is the agenda of a re-elected Obama in a second term.”

Actually, Nate still had Clinton as the frontrunner in that article, while a guy named Chris Bowers had Obama in the lead.

Well, Nate does say:

One final note about Obama. I have written before that if Obama pulls within the margin of error in New Hampshire, he becomes the favorite to win the nomination. This analysis actually bears that out. If we take the result of today's Mason-Dixon poll, which shows him within 3 points, and plug it into our model, it shows Obama with a 50.3% chance of winning the nomination to Hillary's 46.0%.

Considering he's making the prediction just under a month before the first primary, and he's making a statement about the nomination chances based on the results of the second primary (also a month away), and that since the results of those first two primaries met his requirement for the overall nomination prediction (Obamam 50.3% favourite to win), I'm gonna say he guessed it well in advance of Morris.

(Those first two primaries account for 87 of the over 4400 delegates. Making a prediction about an overall nomination winner that early is risky.)

The U.N. flavor of fever swamp bugnuttery might just be my favorite. I mean, the U.N. couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery without the U.S. taking the lead, and now, all of a sudden, they're going to take over the U.S., Red Dawn style by sending in Albanian election observers???

Well, at least the Albanians are sort of white. Better than those Kenyans and North Koreans.

It's worth taking a step back, surveying the several hundred posts gone to following up one poster's mistake on the timing of Silver's rise, and note that Dick Morris, in addition to having no credibility by virtue of being Dick Morris not to mention the demonstrated (ie, not a "claim") bandwagon jumping, has absolutely no relevance to the rise of a well spoken guy, baseball bona fides yada yada with an incredibly nerdy new approach on the polls and a website when media companies were pushing to integrate web content, or the interest his claims received.

The "exactly how quickly did Nate Silver become a minor celebrity?" discussion is both weird and dumb, but I will grant this much. I do bet that Bill James wishes he could have blogged for a few months, had people say "well, this guy clearly knows what he's talking about" and become the preeminent expert in his field, as opposed to spending years having to print up paper books and sell them through a little ad in The Sporting News while he worked in a pork and beans factory...

The "exactly how quickly did Nate Silver become a minor celebrity?" discussion is both weird and dumb, but I will grant this much. I do bet that Bill James wishes he could have blogged for a few months, had people say "well, this guy clearly knows what he's talking about" and become the preeminent expert in his field, as opposed to spending years having to print up paper books and sell them through a little ad in The Sporting News while he worked in a pork and beans factory...

Well, if he'd been born about 30 years later, and in the meantime had managed to abort all of his prospective competitors, ya never know.....But OTOH given what I've seen of a few of his unrelated rants, it's probably good that he's stuck to baseball statistics.

It's either a joke or someone attempting to bait Birthers. No one could possibly have made that with the intent of trying to trick people into believing that Obama was born in Kenya.

That interview is awesome.

And you believe this footage to be 100 percent authentic?
I have no reason to doubt it.

Well, that baby is massive. It looks like it’s at least a year old.
Babies are born heavy all the time; I see no issue with that. And I assure you, most of the general public has no idea how big infants are in Kenya.

What?
You might think the US is a fat society, but in Kenya they are born big and then they become light. Which is evidenced by the fact that today, Obama is really light and fit. That’s just the way it is.

Doesn't this interviewer know that this is in all the medical journals?

The "exactly how quickly did Nate Silver become a minor celebrity?" discussion is both weird and dumb

I was starting to follow RCP in 2006, then I started following Nate every now qwnand then, because well, I used to have a BPro subscription... I had no idea how soon it was after Nate began doing polling analysis that the MSM found him, but it seems that since I started following Nate almost immediately after he started 538.com that it wasn't long at all.

Was anyone aggregating polls on a regular basis prior to RCP in 2000?
You'd think that someone would be doing that before- I strongly suspect that some of the better organized campaigns were doing it internally for some time, but it's like the MSM never had an inkling that you could or should do that

If there were, they wouldn't have had nearly as many to aggregate as today. I've got to think that RCP and its imitators are a wholly internet-accelerated phenomenon. Fifteen years ago, pollsters like Rasmussen and Zogby would have been doing strictly eyes-only internal polling for their respective parties.

Pollster had the race hitting 50/50 back about 10/6, and holding pretty steady since then, neither Obama nor Romney able to get more than 1.0 up on the other

RCP actually had the race hitting dead even a little later 10/8 to 10/9, since then it's had it either tied or Romney ahead by up to 1.3 or so

Pollster and RCP actually show pretty much the same trend line- Pollster is a little more favorable to Obama than RCP, but the two are tracking eachother pretty well

538 on the other hand does no show the same trend, at least since 10/12- that's when 538 saw the race at it's tightest (now cast), 538 shows a slow steady drift towards Obama since then that Pollster and RCP simply do not show.

538 does use info other than polling data- but the info that may drive changes- such as economic data/news supposedly gets phased out the closer you get to the election

It could be different polls- pollster uses the most, RCP the least, 538 in the middle...
or weights? I don't know.

edit: The reason I bring this up now is because the gap between RCP and 538 is now 2.4- which I think is the greatest I've ever seen

I find that 6 of the Polling companies that released polls the past 5 days also released Polls the preceding week- 4 shwo movement to Obama, one is even, one shows movement to Romney
[movement to Obama]:
Ras: +1
PPP: +2
IPSOs: -2
IBD: 0
Gallup: +4
YouGov: +1

Pollster as a whole shows no movement towards Obama- because the current average include polls such as ABC (Romney +3), AP (Romeny +2) and ARG (Romney +2) that were not included/did not release polls last week, conversely last week's Pollster average includes the Wash Times (Obama +3) and Democracy Corps (Obama +2.0)- but not currently.

which is a long wonded way of saying:

if you look at polls released the last 3-4 days compared to the same time period last week there appears to be no appreciable movement for/against Obama/Romney

if you look ONLY at polls released in both time periods- then there appears to be movement towards Obama-

Yeah, I'm noticing that, too. We could list a hundred reasons for favoring one or the other, even though they're a bit appleish and orangeish, but the only way we'll be able to determine it is on November 7th. Meanwhile us poor fish will keep our eyes glued on both of them.

I'm now wondering if the biggest October Surprise of them all may turn out to be Hurricane Sandy, which is due to crash somewhere on the East Coast early next week, and how Obama in particular reacts to it.

Pollster and RCP actually show pretty much the same trend line- Pollster is a little more favorable to Obama than RCP, but the two are tracking eachother pretty well

538 on the other hand does no show the same trend, at least since 10/12- that's when 538 saw the race at it's tightest (now cast), 538 shows a slow steady drift towards Obama since then that Pollster and RCP simply do not show.

538 does use info other than polling data- but the info that may drive changes- such as economic data/news supposedly gets phased out the closer you get to the election

It's because Pollster and RCP's popular vote averages are just averages of national polls, whereas 538's popular vote projection is based mostly on state polls.

I'm now wondering if the biggest October Surprise of them all may turn out to be Hurricane Sandy, which is due to crash somewhere on the East Coast early next week, and how Obama in particular reacts to it.

I was starting to follow RCP in 2006, then I started following Nate every now qwnand then, because well, I used to have a BPro subscription... I had no idea how soon it was after Nate began doing polling analysis that the MSM found him, but it seems that since I started following Nate almost immediately after he started 538.com that it wasn't long at all.

I think people underestimate how much the 'rise' of such 'stars' has changed in the digital age... I remember arguing with 'Poblano' on the orange satan during primary season - before he had unmasked himself - when he was slicing and dicing the Democratic primary... and then always being wrong when the results came in. His DKos diaries during the 2008 primary were required reading and he was uncannily oracle-esque.

I think it goes to show how unsophisticated the 'mainstream media', pundits, and even consultants really were just a short while ago - don't forget HRC's chief strategist Mark Penn not even recognizing proportional allocation of delegates until it became a delegate gathering contest.

As such, it was hardly surprising Nate rose so quickly -- he was providing something no one else was really doing, certainly not with anything approaching that level of sophistication. Once he unmasked, it dovetailed with the surge of 'sabermetrics' in baseball (something even non-baseball fans of a certain intelligence at least tangentially recognized was afoot) - and voila... I'm frankly surprised it took an outlet like the NYT as long as it did to scoop him up.

While many conservatives look to former Clinton political consultant Dick Morris to understand the polls and political surveys on the elections, or even a site like UnSkewedPolls.com, those on the left look to New York Times blogger Nate Silver....

Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he's made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.

Instead, they set out from Day One to destroy him, because they knew that if his moderation and modern cultural identity succeeded, their reactionary radicalism would be sidelined for good. And Rove's method is always to see what your party's own worst flaw is among the public and, with a straight face, accuse your opponent of it.

You know what we're fighting in this election? That cumulative, snow-balling, post-modern, cynical faction of deceit and partisan amnesia. If we are to get past the Cold Civil War we are in, the defeat of the rigidly ideological and theiological GOP is vital.

The phrase Cold Civil War struck me for two reasons. The first is that this is the first time I've read that term applied to our current political economy. The second is that I think Sullivan is right. This *is* something like a Cold Civil War, centered around a hyper-partisan, radicalized reactionary right wing and, well, the rest of the United States.

I wasn't around for the Dixiecrats or the 60's and the rise of the hippies and the New Left and Goldwaterism, but I don't think government has experienced this sort of deadlock since the 19th century. This... this is something else.

EDIT: I suppose I have to include a sort of fringe, Truther and/or hyper-granola left as a counterbalance to the Teavangelicals.... but, well, even the Occupy folks seem more reasonable and, much more importantly, less mainstream than Austrian business cycle Birthers. Dittoheads make up a far more significant portion of the electorate, and their Millerite fantasies are essentially radical. There's a whole information ecosystem of falsehoods parading around as facts that just doesn't have a counterpart on the Left*, afaik.

If you actually 'know' a Rush Limbaugh 'character' (voice? whatever...) well enough to use it for comparative purposes, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to play the elitist card and say that you really, really, have no insights worthy of sharing with the general population and nothing you have ever said or will ever say is worthy of being heard by another human being...

Sorry - but it's just one of those bars that exists in the world for rational and meaningful discourse... there are others -- proclaiming any reality show your "favorite show", collecting beanie babies, or using the words "Michael Bolton" in a sentence without "sucks" are others -- but them's the rules...

What? You thought ensconced *baseball writers* were as bad as it could get for hating objective analysis when their status quo was on the line? Surely you've met some "conservatives" in the world, right?

I listen to Limbaugh sometimes. I can only last through about 10-15 minutes of it, but it's worth hearing what's going on in that world. I watch O'Reilly's talking points for the same reason. I also sometimes watch the final few minutes of the O'Reilly Factor for sheer entertainment value. I just plum don't hate the guy.

I'll even click through FoxNation and WND once in a while. It just reinforces that there's a whole 'nother world out there.

I realize this has little resonance for the main stream, but i started following 538 *because* of Nate's work with PECOTA and bbpro. Never occurred to me that he was a Democrat, like it never mattered that he was a Yankee (or whatever) fan.

He gives Obama a 73.4 percent chance of winning Ohio, which is downright absurd, as Rasmussen has the candidate tied in Ohio, which really means the undecided voters tip the state of Ohio to Romney if the election were held today. So much for that fantasy-land 73.4 percent chance of Obama winning Ohio.

RCP has Obama +2.1 in Ohio, but Obama winning is a fantasy-land pick...

Apparently, Nate Silver has his own way of “skewing” the polls. He appears to look at the polls available and decide which ones to put more “weighting” on in compiling his own average, as opposed to the Real Clear Politics average, and then uses the average he calculates to determine that percentages a candidate has of winning that state.

Silver EC: 294- 244 Obama

RCP EC: 281-257 Obama

HUGE difference I tell ya, HUGE!!!!

I'll say this much for Dean, it doesn't appear that he censors the posts people make to his articles, to wit:

I like how the author makes fun of Silver's looks. He then, most unwisely, provides a picture of himself. Is that you, Cartman?

I listen to Limbaugh sometimes. I can only last through about 10-15 minutes of it, but it's worth hearing what's going on in that world. I watch O'Reilly's talking points for the same reason. I also sometimes watch the final few minutes of the O'Reilly Factor for sheer entertainment value. I just plum don't hate the guy.

I'll even click through FoxNation and WND once in a while. It just reinforces that there's a whole 'nother world out there.

Oh sure, as do I... and I'd likewise say that same applies if you're using... whatever... that you heard on Ed Schultz/Randi Rhodes/whomever... from the left.

There's just a point where, if you're using such claptrap as a frame of reference, I feel entirely confidant your choice of frame alone eliminates the possibility that you have any sort of opinion worth minding.

I listen to Limbaugh sometimes. I can only last through about 10-15 minutes of it, but it's worth hearing what's going on in that world. I watch O'Reilly's talking points for the same reason. I also sometimes watch the final few minutes of the O'Reilly Factor for sheer entertainment value. I just plum don't hate the guy.

I occasionally listen to Neal Boortz for this reason but mainly for a good laugh.

I have no need of this, as I can simply unmute some of the locals on my Facebook feed if I need to take a short dip in the cray cray.

I only have a few Obama haters in my life. Unfortunately two of them are my housemates. But I'm rarely home so I have to go elsewhere for lunacy. I'd listen to leftwing nutbags too but they don't exist on the radio. I do have a few more of those on the Facebook however. One guy thinks we're headed progressively towards a violent uprising by the lower class.

And there's the guy at my work, and I've shared this before, that believes every conspiracy theory you can think of. My favorite one is that he thinks Katrina was created by giant turbines in the Gulf of Mexico. But he's good at his job.

I realize this has little resonance for the main stream, but i started following 538 *because* of Nate's work with PECOTA and bbpro. Never occurred to me that he was a Democrat, like it never mattered that he was a Yankee (or whatever) fan.

Same here. What marks BPro writers (and many of the best stathead writers) is a willingness to skewer their own favorite teams when the numbers say so, and Nate's no exception. Plus, Nate's credibility stems from how accurate his numbers are regardless of what he writes, so it is in his best interest to have accurate numbers.

My favorite one is that he thinks Katrina was created by giant turbines in the Gulf of Mexico.

That's new to me!

My favorite crazy, irrational, completely unsupported at any level of reality conspiracy theory is the notion that humans are rational and capable of "logical" decision making.

So, let's say the facts continue apace and the world wakes up on Nov 7 once again showing it's liberal bias, Obama wins, Nate is proved correct, and off we go into another four years of fun. What are the odds that even Kehoskie, much less this "Dean" fellow from "unskewed polls" or whatever the #### his crazy is called, admit they were wrong rather than finding some lever of conspiratorial/paranoid thinking to explain away the facts and avoid cognitive dissonance?

What are the odds that even Kehoskie, much less this "Dean" fellow from "unskewed polls" or whatever the #### his crazy is called, admit they were wrong rather than finding some lever of conspiratorial/paranoid thinking to explain away the facts and avoid cognitive dissonance?

Zero. That Nate is popular and Obama leads in most polls is already indicative to them that there's a liberal media conspiracy going on. If Obama wins, then that proves the conspiracy. If Obama loses, then that happens despite the conspiracy. Either way, the existence of the conspiracy is assumed.

let's say the facts continue apace and the world wakes up on Nov 7 once again showing it's liberal bias, Obama wins, Nate is proved correct, and off we go into another four years of fun. What are the odds that even Kehoskie, much less this "Dean" fellow from "unskewed polls" or whatever the #### his crazy is called, admit they were wrong rather than finding some lever of conspiratorial/paranoid thinking to explain away the facts and avoid cognitive dissonance?

A million to one. The beauty of operating in a worldview in which facts and evidence are irrelevant is that they never have to admit being wrong. They just keep dreaming up new fantasies.

What fascinates me is how lefty conspiracy theories will migrate over to the right (and spin 180 in the process)- if nothing else it does show that some of the guys creating content for the echo chamber are willing to look outside that box for new material.

Case in point- In the past I saw two lefty conspiracy theorires regarding the 2000 and 2004 elections.

2004: Many on the left accused the polls of being skewed in favor of Bush- the evidence for this was the partisan makeup of the polls- this belief- in a somewhat more virulent form, popped up on the right thsi Augist/September

2000: I started seeing this idea get bantered about years after the fact- Gore was leading most polls (untrue, but stay with it), but the media only reported the polls favorable to Dubya, to give the false impression that he was winning, partly this was because the media was in the tank and partly because this was Rove's strategy- have his people talk CONSTANTLY about the favorable polls, and to ACT as if Dubya was winning, the idea was to dampen Dem enthusiasm and boost GOP enthusiasm and squeak out a come from behind win- and it worked (With an assist from Kathleen Harris and Scotus).

That theory about 2000 is now being bantered about by both left and right (mostly the right) with respect to this year's election.

What fascinates me is how lefty conspiracy theories will migrate over to the right (and spin 180 in the process)- if nothing else it does show that some of the guys creating content for the echo chamber are willing to look outside that box for new material.

2000: I started seeing this idea get bantered about years after the fact- Gore was leading most polls (untrue, but stay with it), but the media only reported the polls favorable to Dubya, to give the false impression that he was winning, partly this was because the media was in the tank and partly because this was Rove's strategy- have his people talk CONSTANTLY about the favorable polls, and to ACT as if Dubya was winning, the idea was to dampen Dem enthusiasm and boost GOP enthusiasm and squeak out a come from behind win- and it worked (With an assist from Kathleen Harris and Scotus).

That theory about 2000 is now being bantered about by both left and right (mostly the right) with respect to this year's election.

In a close election, winning the "I'm winning" narrative can be the difference...

Case in point - Team Romney was making a big deal today about an ad buy in Minnesota... Of course - it's a paltry $30k ad buy, it actually bleeds into Iowa, and it was such a blatantly transparent "WE'RE EXPANDING THE MAP!!!" gambit that even the world's most reliable political stenography shop (Politico) saw through it.

One of my major problems with conspiracy theorists is how they refuse to establish a clearly-defined line of what is enough evidence to convince them their belief is wrong. At the beginning, they demand to see Evidence A. You show them A to disprove their theory, but they don't back down - now it's B they must gaze upon with their own eyes.

Consider the birthers: Not once did I ever think a revelation of a new fact would cause a single one of them to say, "I am forced to admit this proves my allegations as totally unfounded. I apologize to President Obama, and to everyone else for wasting their time."

Consider the birthers: Not once did I ever think a revelation of a new fact would cause a single one of them to say, "I am forced to admit this proves my allegations as totally unfounded. I apologize to President Obama, and to everyone else for wasting their time."

So how many people here have ever believed in a (major) conspiracy theory, but then have "left the flock" and don't believe in the conspiracy any more?

I can freely admit that I was a "JFK assassination conspiracy" believer in my late teens and early 20s. It wasn't until I did some more reading that I changed my mind and didn't believe that it was more than LHO. I used to love "JFK" (the movie) for a couple of years because I thought it was awesome that they were getting out the information that needed to be heard. Now, after my "conversion", I can't watch the movie at all.

Also, for a long time, I believed in the Roswell/UFO coverup conspiracy. Eventually "conspiracy physics" (too much conspiracy propped up on too small a point) and real physics (space travel, communication) eventually switched me over to "Nope, don't believe it."

(Note: I'm not looking to debate the truth of those conspiracies with anyone. There is no way I'm going to change anyone's mind, or they'll change mine.)

2000: I started seeing this idea get bantered about years after the fact- Gore was leading most polls (untrue, but stay with it), but the media only reported the polls favorable to Dubya, to give the false impression that he was winning, partly this was because the media was in the tank and partly because this was Rove's strategy- have his people talk CONSTANTLY about the favorable polls, and to ACT as if Dubya was winning, the idea was to dampen Dem enthusiasm and boost GOP enthusiasm and squeak out a come from behind win- and it worked (With an assist from Kathleen Harris and Scotus).

I'm not sure how much public opinion really mattered in the events that determined the outcome of the 2000 election, but I suspect it mattered a bit. I always thought that Bush benefited from (a) the perception that he was winning going into Election Day and (b) that Florida was initially called for him. Those two things created the impression that Gore was trying to take something from Bush, rather than fight the issue on equal footing. Maybe it didn't really matter.

My favorite crazy, irrational, completely unsupported at any level of reality conspiracy theory is the notion that humans are rational and capable of "logical" decision making.

To me that's just fanboyism applied to non-sports. What gets me is that seemingly otherwise normal people buy into this crackpot ####. The guy who believes that reptilian shapeshifting aliens that feed off of human blood and fear run the world comes across as a completely normal guy. He's not dumb, he's not socially awkward (within a work environment), he's not a loner or a loser. He interacts and gets along very well with a lot of people, he does his job well and even has other hobbies that are kind of cool (he makes his own wine and one of my employees also bounces at a bar so he brings him a half dozen empty wine bottles in exchange for a couple of full ones). And then one day I was working with him when some slackjaws down near Columbus said they had killed Bigfoot. It was a whole new world. He really believed it.

I can freely admit that I was a "JFK assassination conspiracy" believer in my late teens and early 20s. It wasn't until I did some more reading that I changed my mind and didn't believe that it was more than LHO. I used to love "JFK" (the movie) for a couple of years because I thought it was awesome that they were getting out the information that needed to be heard. Now, after my "conversion", I can't watch the movie at all.

Oh I loved that movie, even while knowing it was complete crap.
Of course if you know it's complete crap you realize that the Movie's "hero" Jim Garrison is in reality the villain of a real life abuse of power story...

One of my major problems with conspiracy theorists is how they refuse to establish a clearly-defined line of what is enough evidence to convince them their belief is wrong.

Oh, they'll establish those lines all right, they'll just move them when someone meets them there.

You also have to understand that for many conspiracy theorists, as it is for many very religious people, the belief in "XYZ" is core to their sense of reality, so central that if "ABC" contradicts XYZ, then ABC absolutely has to fit into one of these categories

1: ABC is simply no true, it is a lie, someone made it up, the eyewitness is lying, the scientist is faking the data;
2: ABC may be true but does not contradict or disprove XYZ, you need to commit some type of logical fallacy to reach that conclusion;
3: ABC supports XYZ (because EVERYTHING supports XYZ)

Evolutionists have trouble debating Creationists, because to creationists, EVERYTHING either supports Genesis/intelligent design or can be explained by Genesis/intelligent design. Plus creation scientists lie quite freely- they do so quite frankly because they assume that evolutionists are consciously lying- and it does not matter how often they are "corrected" on some factoid.

I can freely admit that I was a "JFK assassination conspiracy" believer in my late teens and early 20s. It wasn't until I did some more reading that I changed my mind and didn't believe that it was more than LHO. I used to love "JFK" (the movie) for a couple of years because I thought it was awesome that they were getting out the information that needed to be heard. Now, after my "conversion", I can't watch the movie at all.

I was into the JFK theory for a while. And it wasn't until late teens that I started questioning the evolutionary viability of things like Bigfoot/Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster, etc.

And of course, I still believe that a secret cabal of Jewish bankers run the world. Naturally.

I can freely admit that I was a "JFK assassination conspiracy" believer in my late teens and early 20s. It wasn't until I did some more reading that I changed my mind and didn't believe that it was more than LHO.

I was in the same position. In the end, once you find out how a high-powered rifle actually affects the human body, the conspiracy can no longer hold itself together.

One I liked on wordy grounds came out from the 2000 election, and focused on the makers of the new electronic voting machines -- a company called Diebold, which also makes locks. I guess it wasn't really a theory so much as a few panicked hippies convinced that the new electronic voting machines were a "lock" for the GOP (geddit?), but then I enjoy puns.

And it wasn't until late teens that I started questioning the evolutionary viability of things like Bigfoot/Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster, etc.

Oh the existence of a North American "Great Ape" is evolutionarily viable, there's just no good evidence for such a critter- the Loch Ness Monster on the other hand... pretty much non-viable- the Loch is simply not THAT old for such a critter to have evolved in the lake, and it tends to be food/oxygen poor, both pretty much putting the kibosh on any large critter living in there...

Not to sound like Snapper, but Dan Brown is both an anti-Catholic bigot and a wholly unimaginative plagiarist (yeah sure he got sued for plagiarism and won- because the judge ruled that since the guys he stole from had marked their bogus work as "fact" and Brown's was marketed as fiction...).

So, let's say the facts continue apace and the world wakes up on Nov 7 once again showing it's liberal bias, Obama wins, Nate is proved correct, and off we go into another four years of fun. What are the odds that even Kehoskie, much less this "Dean" fellow from "unskewed polls" or whatever the #### his crazy is called, admit they were wrong rather than finding some lever of conspiratorial/paranoid thinking to explain away the facts and avoid cognitive dissonance?

It's only fair to ask the question from the opposite perspective. What will the Democratic partisans do if the actual electorate doesn't reflect the D+9 tilt of the polls barely favorable to Obama, and instead reverts to the historically typical D+2 or 3, causing Obama's double-digit loss of Independents to send the election to Romney by a significant margin? Will we have a repeat of the "stolen election" rhetoric from 2000 & 2004? A rush to belittle the voters, who were so smart in 2006 & 2008, but now must be "stupid" since they didn't return Obama to office? I certainly hope those folks will react as civilly as I would if the election goes against my preference, but I have considerable doubt about that.

Snapper wanted to send in an AC-130 to mow down the Benghazi rioters during the riot. Since he would be aiming to kill them, it would have been morally acceptable to him that innocents were killed. In explaining his position he demonstrated that he has no idea what he was talking about since he based his knowledge off of The Green Berets.

It's only fair to ask the question from the opposite perspective. What will the Democratic partisans do if the actual electorate doesn't reflect the D+9 tilt of the polls barely favorable to Obama, and instead reverts to the historically typical D+2 or 3, causing Obama's double-digit loss of Independents to send the election to Romney by a significant margin?

1: Despite what you may be reading very very few polls are actually showing a D+9 partisan composition- and those that are tend to show Obama with a bit more than a "barely favorable" lead for Obama

2: Right now the aggregator spread (unskewed excluded) seems to run from Obama +1.5 to Romney +0.9

What do you mean by a "significant" margin- Romney by more than 1.5? More than 5?

Clapper, you're right the questions would go both ways. If Romney won a clear victory then of course I would have a lot of questions about the polls and the various aggregators. I suspect most people here would feel the same. Certainly the Democrats have responded sharply in the past to defeat--note the triumph of the DLC--and would respond sharply (though perhaps not effectively!) If your question is whether you'd ever see a tough post on Daily Kos or something, then that's obviously a totally different story.

The people who were talking about stolen elections in 2004 were a small and foolish minority.

2000 is obviously a different story since the only fair way to read is that the election was a tie and neither side was going to feel easy about losing a tie, especially the party that won the popular majority. Even with that, Congress moved smoothly through the count, unlike in 1876.

What will the Democratic partisans do if the actual electorate doesn't reflect the D+9 tilt of the polls barely favorable to Obama, and instead reverts to the historically typical D+2 or 3, causing Obama's double-digit loss of Independents to send the election to Romney by a significant margin?

As a Canadian, I dispassionately shake my head in disappointment, bemoan the first debate performance, and then settle down for a few more years living under my own "Conservative" government.*

*However, if someone can present an airtight statistical case that there is some funny business involving Ohio county vote totals, all bets are off.

It's only fair to ask the question from the opposite perspective. What will the Democratic partisans do if the actual electorate doesn't reflect the D+9 tilt of the polls barely favorable to Obama, and instead reverts to the historically typical D+2 or 3, causing Obama's double-digit loss of Independents to send the election to Romney by a significant margin?

Specifically, Nate will reassess his model and fold the new data into his forecasting assumptions. That's what Nate does. Numbers. Folks here will probably have a bit of a "WTF" moment, and then figure out how to deal with a four-year administration of nutjobs again.

Will we have a repeat of the "stolen election" rhetoric from 2000 & 2004?

If you look for that you'll be able to find it, sure. I can point you to petitions to fund feinting couches over election machines and Tag (?) Romney in Ohio today. So yeah, some of that. Probably not a lot of that here, unless you get something truly ###### up like FL 2000.

(By the way, I love how you conflate FL 2000 with OH 2004, as if they're remotely similar events. Way to move the cheese, Dickweed.)

A rush to belittle the voters,

I personally promise you that, regardless of outcome or effect, I will belittle the #### out of some voters, and pretty much everyone else. The people are stupid and easily led. I will mock you mouth breathing monkeyboys incessantly, no matter who wins.

I certainly hope those folks will react as civilly as I would if the election goes against my preference, but I have considerable doubt about that

Snapper wanted to send in an AC-130 to mow down the Benghazi rioters during the riot. Since he would be aiming to kill them, it would have been morally acceptable to him that innocents were killed.

So we're back to arguing this was a demonstration rather than terrorist attack? Thought that ship had sailed. The former Seals who were killed at the CIA Annex apparently died in a mortar attack - something that might have been taken out by an AC-130, BTW.

So we're back to arguing this was a demonstration rather than terrorist attack? Thought that ship had sailed. The former Seals who were killed at the CIA Annex apparently died in a mortar attack - something that might have been taken out by an AC-130, BTW.

Way to ignore my post, which was first BTW, in which I called it an attack. And no, we shouldn't have killed and wounded hundreds of innocents to stop the attack.